Studio Framework
3
Infrastructural Footprints 6 Infrastructural Systems
12
Studio Projects
20
STUDIO FRAMEWORK
TABLE OF CONTENT
In this era of resource scarcity it is mandatory to expand (the concept of) recycling to the urban and territorial scale. In this studio we investigated the potential of recycling or rethinking existing infrastructural systems in two concrete sites along Limburg’s (partially) abandoned Coal Track. It considers a cyclic interaction between human occupation and the environment in which we envision new connections between infrastructural assets and available – as much as possible renewable - resources. In the global context of resource-depletion, a growing attention is going to preservation and reuse of materials and resources. What used to be considered as waste becomes a resource with value. How can connecting cycles of for example waste, water and energy contribute to a region specific and diversified economy while at the same time generating alternative forms of urbanization related to for example circular economies or decentralized energy and water networks? In this studio we explored these alternative forms of urbanization on the small and intermediate scale. We explored and developed scenarios and spatial strategies on how major transitions in waste practices, energy, water supply and carbon neutral neighbourhoods can become a lever for driving or restructuring urban development in the dispersed urbanization of Houthalen-Helchteren and Eisden/Maasmechelen. We examined new infrastructural dependencies between urbanization and local resources, which could become drivers for the evolution of the dispersed territory as a resilient urban form. Therefore we used two perspectives in the studio: a traditional urban design approach and a systemic approach. In the urban design approach we developed volumetric compositions, transitions between public and private, open space structures, housing types, the permeability of the site, the context as the regulatory aspect of the design... While in the systemic design approach, we explored the potential of systemic connections to reduce the need for natural resources significantly. Systemic design can translate the multiple dimensions of transitions in resource management into a feasible synthesis, and at the same time be a tool for negotiation by helping to formulate problems, agreeing on project definitions and proposing alternative strategies and concepts that deal with the problems at hand.
